Eleven prominent Bolshevik Party members, most notably Grigorii Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev who had played important roles in the October Revolution and who were close compatriots of the late Vladimir Lenin, together with five German Communists, are brought to trial for participating in an anti-Stalinist “terrorist organization” which sought to kill Party leaders, including General Secretary Josef Stalin himself. Many of the accused, in particular, Zinoviev and Kamenev, had at one time or another opposed opinions or policies advocated by Stalin though all had long-since renounced their former positions and sworn loyalty to the “Boss” (вождь / vozhd’).
Known as the “Trial of the Sixteen” (or, “The Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center”) the proceedings take place over five days, from the 19-24 August. According to the charges levied by State Prosecutor General Andrei Vyshinskii, the accused are responsible for the 1934 assassination of Leningrad Party Chief official Sergei Kirov; all are alleged to have close ties to Leon Trotsky who is now living in exile abroad. By the time the trial opens, each of the defendants has already signed a confession of guilt. These statements, extracted through the use of torture, are the only evidence presented to the court.
All sixteen of the defendants are found guilty and quickly executed. An additional 160 people are subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted based on “evidence” gathered during the proceedings. Far from a legitimate court action, the “Case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center” is merely the most recent and high-profile “show trial” to date in the history of the USSR. As with other previous (and forthcoming) proceedings, it is attended by close to three dozen handpicked foreign journalists and diplomats. Heavily publicized by the Soviet press and closely observed by the general populace, nearly all will come to believe that the accused are legitimately guilty.
The “Trial of the Sixteen” marks the onset, in earnest, of the “Great Terror.” Intended to solidify Stalin’s control of the Party apparat and to foment popular hysteria over threats posed by alleged “enemies within,” the Great Terror will ultimately lead to the summary executions of between 950,000 and 1.2 million individuals and the dispatch of many more into the now burgeoning GULag prison camp system.